of his worth,
assumed an imposing outward attitude; so that a witty Stuttgart Lady,
whose house Schiller often walked past, said of him: "Regiment's Dr.
Schiller steps out as if the Duke were one of his inferior servants!"

'The indescribable impression which the _Robbers_, the gigantic
first-born of a Karl's Scholar, made in Stuttgart, communicated itself
to the Mother too; innocently she gave herself up to the delight of
seeing her Son's name wondered at and celebrated; and was, in her
Mother-love, inventive enough to overcome all doubts and risks which
threatened to dash her joy. By Christophine's mediations, and from the
Son himself as well, she learned many a disquieting circumstance,
which for the present had to be carefully concealed from her Husband;
but nothing whatever could shake her belief in her Son and his talent.
Without murmur, with faithful trust in God, she resigned herself even
to the bitter necessity of losing for a long time her only Son; having
once got to see, beyond disputing, that his purpose was firm to
withdraw himself by flight from the Duke's despotic interference with
his poetical activity as well as with his practical procedures; and
that this purpose of his was rigorously demanded by the circumstances.
Yet a sword went through her soul when Schiller, for the last time,
appeared at Solituede, secretly to take leave of her.' Her feelings on
this tragic occasion have been described above; and may well be
pictured as among the painfulest, tenderest and saddest that a
Mother's heart could have to bear. Our Author continues:

'In reality, it was to the poor Mother a hard and lamentable time.
Remembrance of the lately bright and safe-looking situation, now
suddenly rent asunder and committed to the dubious unknown; anxiety
about their own household and the fate of her Son; the Father's just
anger, and perhaps some tacit self-reproach that she had favoured a
dangerous game by keeping it concealed from her honest-hearted
Husband,--lay like crushing burdens on her heart. And if many a thing
did smooth itself, and many a thing, which at first was to be feared,
did not take place, one thing remained fixed continually,--painful
anxiety about her Son. To the afflicted Mother, in this heavy time,
Frau von Wolzogen devoted the most sincere and beneficent sympathy; a
Lady of singular goodness of heart, who, during Schiller's eight
hidden months at Bauerbach, frequently went out to see his Family at
Sol